


i'll take the bad times

by rebelliousenjolras



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: AU, Angst, College AU, F/M, M/M, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance, almost everyone is gay, down with the system, eponine is sad and enjolras is confused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelliousenjolras/pseuds/rebelliousenjolras
Summary: as cliché as it was, it all started with a cup of coffee.in which éponine and enjolras bond over a turtle named billy joel and an inability to stay out of the other's life.





	1. disregard the danger

**Author's Note:**

> title and chapter titles inspired by billy joel's album "the stranger"

As cliche as it was, it all started with a cup of coffee. For someone who delighted in breaking molds and stereotypes, this should have felt infuriating to him, or at least caused a mild bit of annoyance. But after that first, fateful day, when everything changed and reality became just a tad bit tilted, he’d found no room in his life for such grievances. Maybe it even did him some good, becoming a walking, talking cliche. Of course, how was he to know that then, when all he set out for was just a simple cup of coffee? 

On the morning in question, Enjolras left his apartment long after the sun rose. He’d been awake to an hour he didn’t want to remember studying the evening before and jotting down notes for the next ABC meeting. Running a social justice organization in the basement of a university’s political science building was no easy feat, especially with the coffee-and-rage fumes he ran on. So, he’d allowed himself a ten a.m. lie in, swearing he’d right his sleeping schedule soon and knowing it was a lie. His tired, protesting feet carrying him to the 24-hour diner next door that never failed him. Or, his sleepy brain mused, perhaps he never failed the diner, seeing as he’d never noticed another patron occupying a barstool at the old-fashioned counter. 

Enjolras offered Ms. Houcheloup the smallest of smiles, as it was all he could muster so soon after waking up. The elderly woman didn’t seem to mind, though. She simply sat down a cup of coffee in front of his usual place at the counter, milk and sugar on the side. It was the little things in life that mattered, Enjolras decided, on mornings when there was a pile of papers cluttering his ever-chaotic desk and most likely a week’s worth of dishes in his sink.

“Good morning, dear.” Ms. Houcheloup said, and something about the way she treated him made some of that tiredness melt right off of his bones. It was the Grandmother Effect, all capital letters, he reasoned. Nobody could resist the allure of the Grandmother Effect. 

“Good morning.” Enjolras offered just a second too late to fit within the realm of social construct. He sat down at the counter, pulling a few pages of crumpled notes out of his messenger bag (the one Courfeyrac had called absolutely “atrocious” when Enjolras had picked it out at Target, yet he had gleefully skipped to the check-out line and refused to let Enjolras pick out something else). 

Ms. Houcheloup went back to her newspaper after giving Enjolras yet another smile worthy of the Grandmother Effect. He, in turn, began pouring over his notes, frowning as the handwriting got more and more cramped and jagged the later the hour was. He sighed. The ABC had been doing research into the university’s bathroom policy for weeks now, trying to poke a loophole in the firm anti-equality stance administration had taken. He was one more placating smile and shake of the head from barricading himself inside the university president’s own bathroom. Bahorel, if Enjolras had vocalized these thoughts in his presence, might actually start rounding up supplies. 

With this thought in mind, Enjolras drained his first cup of coffee, and before he even had a chance to raise his eyes, Ms. Houcheloup had placed another in front of him. The little things, indeed. 

Though the visit was short enough, he’d given himself just the right amount of time for him to empty two mugs of coffee and take another to go. He clutched his thermos to his chest, fingers tracing the gaudy rhinestones that spelled out “Enjolras” across the front. It had been a birthday gift from Jehan the year before, and somehow managed combined Enjolras’ favorite and least favorite things: sustainability, and monogrammed homeware. He endured the bedazzling only out of sheer love for his friend, and if anyone but Jehan had given him such a gift, that wouldn’t be the case. 

After successfully completing the four-flight trek of stairs leading up to his apartment, a tad more winded than he cared to admit, Enjolras hadn’t even managed to fish his keys out of his pockets before noticing things were most definitely not as he’d left them hardly an hour before.  

There were three doors in the tiny hallway that housed his one-bedroom apartment. One, obviously, led his own quarters, and was scrubbed clean of dust and dirt. The second led to the narrow, stuffy staircase that he’d just exited, and the third… 

Another apartment, presumably identical to his, that had been vacant for years. Enjolras had grown used to the solitude of the floor, enjoyed it, even, because it meant there was no noisy music to interrupt his studying, no knocks at his his door asking to borrow a cup of sugar. He fulfilled any desire he had for human interaction during his twice a week ABC meetings, and various other events with his friends. Enjolras was not the type to host a block party for his building, or get together once a week to watch the big game. He was blissfully, utterly alone… Until now. 

Because there were cardboard boxes scattered all around the hall, one precariously stacked pile even blocking the entrance to his own apartment. This would have annoyed him, had there not been another hundred things in the small hall to catch his attention. The door was now a shocking purple, and flecks of still-wet paint were splattered onto the threadbare carpet at his feet. There was no sign of his new neighbor, nor of the landlady that owned the small complex. Whoever the tenant was, they worked fast, and if their paint choice hadn’t been so absolutely dreadful Enjolras would have found himself slightly impressed. 

Finding the quiet of the hall disconcerting, and like any concerned neighbor would, Enjolras peeked his head inside the residence. Yes, identical to his, just as he’d suspected, though there were traces of the new owner’s eccentric touch splashed throughout the place already, though he or she couldn’t have been there more than an hour at most. The walls were in the midst of being painted a deep burgundy--he had to admit it was rather attractive, and much more eye-catching than his own beige, and definitely more appealing than the garish purple on the door--and mismatched furniture filled every corner and crevice of the room. His eyes roved over plush printed cushions in a heap beneath the window, and a massive emerald green couch, looking as if it had been plucked straight from the sixties. A tank took up a sizable portion of the kitchen counter, and within it Enjolras spotted a turtle, basking in the warmth radiating from a heat lamp secured to wall by a hodgepodge of Hello Kitty and Spiderman duct tape. 

He carefully sidestepped a plush navy ottoman that had seen better days, following the faint hum of music he heard seeping through the cracks beneath a closed door. If he had to guess correctly--and his talent for stating the obvious hadn’t failed him yet today--he assumed it was the door to the bedroom. Enjolras briefly considered knocking, but then he realized how ridiculous that was, considering he was already inside the apartment. This had to count as some form of minor breaking and entering, minus the breaking part. So maybe, he’d just entered under suspicious circumstances. 

Realizing that somehow, his own brain was rambling in the midst of a mildly distressing situation, Enjolras pushed the thoughts aside as he twisted the doorknob. And there, he found the source of his confusion and disrupted Saturday morning. 

She held a can of blindingly yellow paint in one hand and a brush in the other. Random brushstrokes covered the wall; it seemed as she had no rhyme or reason to how she painted. Enjolras picked out a crudely drawn rose on one wall, and a rendering of the turtle he’d spotted in the kitchen on another. A part of his brain that wasn’t occupied with his not-breaking and entering wondered if she planned to just leave the walls that way. A second brush held her thick dark curls in a loose bun against the nape of her neck, and her cheeks were flushed a deep pink. She sang along with the unfamiliar song he’d heard from the living room, and her voice was quite lovely--

And then, she turned, not even granting him the courtesy of looking abashed at having been the cause of such chaos this early in his morning. Enjolras supposed he’d also expected her to look just a little bit perplexed to see a man standing in her doorway who was very clearly not their forty-five year old, Filipino landlady. She smiled in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes and set the can down with enough carelessness that some paint slopped over the side and onto the drop cloth crumpled at her feet. Completely and utterly unconcerned--he had a sneaking suspicion this was a running theme with the unnamed girl--she held out a hand crusted with yellow and purple paint. 

“I suppose you’re the neighbor, then?” she asked, voice husky and teasing, as if she was the one who’d lived here for four years instead of him. “Ms. Mendoza told me about you. I did think you’d be taller, though.” And before Enjolras had time to consider a coherent response, or at least re-hinge his jaw, she continued. “Sorry about the mess.”

She waved a paint-covered hand flippantly, splattering the carpet with more yellow paint, clearly not at all perturbed by the fact that she’d possibly disturbed him. He just stared at this strange girl, with her aggressive paint choices and impudent attitude, mouth still agape slightly. His silence, it seemed, didn’t faze her. Surprise, surprise. 

“I’m Éponine Thenardier. You’re Antoine Enjolras.” She said this all rather slowly, as if i was not a question so much as a statement of a fact that should be obvious to the both of them. “I’ve actually seen you before. I know your friend, Marius? I’ve been to a meeting or two of your little club as well. You know, the one where you make grand, sweeping gestures about lives you have no business interfering in and matters you cannot understand.”

At this, Enjolras bristled, and he finally found the words to combat this odd, small creature (she had to barely clear 5 feet, how was that much personality contained in such a tiny form?) that stood before him. “‘Excuse me, Ms. Thenardier, but clearly our ideas are going straight over your vapid head if that’s all you think we do.”

He immediately regretted the words as they flew through his lips, finding himself suddenly awake and horrified at himself. Under ordinary circumstances, he would be embarrassed to have spoken to anyone, let alone a stranger, like that, on top of breaking into their apartment. Something, though about that little simpering smile Éponine gave him as she insulted the only good thing in his life set his teeth on edge. Enjolras was already spinning an apology in his head, and perhaps searching for a grand method of escape (the window was much too far away to dive out of, and even if he turned and fled, she still knew where he lived) but Éponine beat him to words. 

“The album,” she gestured with that same paint-splattered hand to the old record player in the corner, the only piece of furniture currently in the bedroom. She seemed to be totally ignoring the insult Enjolras had hurled at her just seconds after she’d told him her name. “It’s Billy Joel _.  _ Also the name of the lazy fuck lounging in his tank out there. He’s the worst watch-turtle you’ve ever seen, isn’t he?” Éponine’s gaze was measured, and not even a twitch of her lips indicated to him whether or not she was joking. 

Enjolras couldn’t decide whether to laugh or call a psychiatric ward. So, he opted to shrug and stick his hands in his pockets. “I mean-- he didn’t seem to raise much of an alarm when I came in. I’m sorry about that, by the way,” Enjolras, mercifully, found the good decency to blush. “I didn’t mean to intrude-- I just--”

Éponine shrugged and resumed her doodle of a moth vaulting itself into the sun. Or perhaps it was a heavily pregnant woman. He wasn’t quite sure, and at this point, he was too afraid of this odd, tiny girl to ask. Besides, perhaps it wasn’t in good form to break into someone’s home and start critiquing their art. 

“I would have been offended if you didn’t drop by,” Éponine said, and it was again as if they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while. She gave the moth (or the woman) what looked like a feathered hat before returning her attention to Enjolras. “And besides, I’m in dire need of a second opinion: Does this moth need a scarf?”

There was his answer. Enjolras’ lips twitched as he bit back a smile, though he wasn’t entirely sure why he did.  _ I’ve been to a meeting or two of your little club _ , her words echoed in his mind, tugging at every one of his nerves. He pushed down his ridiculous anger, though, and focused on the matter at hand. 

“I think the hat toes the line between functionality and fashion well. A scarf might upset an already delicate balance.” Enjolras was pleased to see a small smile pull at the edges of Éponine’s lips. He suddenly felt like continuing, perhaps describing the exact circumstance in which a moth might need a hat to launch itself into the sun. He was at a loss for words, though, all of his wit sucked dry by this strange interaction with Éponine. 

“You’re absolutely correct,” she said dryly, and with a dramatic flourish, set down her paintbrush haphazardly on the edge of the paint can. It took everything Enjolras had not to move it to a spot on solid ground. “How fortunate I am to have a neighbor with such an artist’s eye.”

He pushed his hands further into his pockets, wishing desperately for something to say that would make him seem the slightest bit interesting, or even the ability to launch himself into the sun like Éponine’s moth. Fortunately, though, the album ended, filling the room with that soothing, static sound that only a record player can supply. She flipped the record, and soon Billy Joel’s voice came blasting through the well-worn machine. 

“The album, it’s called  _ The Stranger _ ,” she murmured, not quite meeting his gaze, now. Enjolras swore he was going to get whiplash from her rapidly-changing moods and turns in topic. “That’s what you came for, isn’t it?” 

And she smiled at him again, but this time, it wasn’t sarcastic or that halfway sort of happy. It was sad, and a little broken, and maybe she wasn’t been electing to ignore his earlier rudeness, and instead had become used to absorbing and ignoring harsh words thrown her way. Éponine turned her back to him, returning to painting those walls that ungodly yellow. With just a few strokes of her brush, the moth portrait disappeared.

“I-- thank you,” Enjolras muttered, half-embarrassed, half-confused. “I’ll see you later.” 

Éponine didn’t acknowledge him. Enjolras quietly showed himself out, offering Billy Joel, the worst watch-turtle in the world, a wave that made him feel more than slightly ridiculous after the fact. As he let that hideous purple door swing shut behind him, wincing at the squeaking of the hinges, he couldn’t shake that last smile of Éponine’s. Something about it contrasted so heavily with the light, breezy way she carried herself, the dry jokes, the careless gestures. He almost wished she’d hit him instead.

Perhaps he wouldn’t feel so damn guilty if she had.


	2. quiet desperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, neighbor,” Éponine’s tone was light. “Mind if I borrow a cup of sugar? Cliche, I know."
> 
> (trigger warnings for mentions of foster care and parental neglect)

They didn’t speak for a month after that. Every time Enjolras returned home after classes or an ABC meeting, her door was closed, and the only sign of life was the music blaring through her record player. Doors creaked open and slammed shut, packages came and went--she’d even signed for one of his, once--and yet, he hadn’t seen that small, fiery girl since that very first day. Perhaps it was a good thing, seeing as some of the first words out of his mouth when they’d met included calling her “vapid.” Enjolras regretted it, of course, but he also couldn’t swallow enough of his pride to pull another not-quite breaking and entering stunt to apologize. 

Enjolras tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, that he hadn’t even wanted a neighbor, anyway. Yet he couldn’t quite shake the guilt the look of that third smile of Éponine’s brought, or the frustration at the utter blase way in which she conducted herself. None of it mattered, though, because he had bigger matters at hand. 

Their proposal for one gender neutral bathroom per building was rejected before it even got to the university president’s desk. Enjolras had been expecting some pushback; in fact, he’d been relying on it. Cosette, the head journalist on the university’s paper, had a piece ready to go on the injustice of refusing to accommodate the school’s transgender and non-gender conforming students. Jehan had even agreed to sit down and interview with her, discussing their experiences as a non-binary student at the school. However, the university had axed the story before it even had a chance to go to edit. Enjolras was outraged, absolutely furious, and he was once more rethinking the bathroom barricade plan. 

He was drafting a letter to the head of the journalism department when there was a knocking on the door. After a few wishful seconds in which he hoped the intruder would go away, Enjolras opened the door, fully expecting to see Ms. Mendoza, or perhaps the maintenance crew, but instead, his eyes traveled downwards… To Éponine. 

She offered him the first smile and dangled a plastic cup in front of his face. Her black nail polish was chipped. “Hey, neighbor,” Éponine’s tone was light. “Mind if I borrow a cup of sugar? Cliche, I know. But I don’t feel like catching a bus to the store again today. Some creep at the stop a few blocks over wouldn’t quit telling me how lovely my skin was,” she shuddered. “What kind of bullshit is that?”

Enjolras, bewildered, (as seemed to be the norm whenever Éponine chose to appear) wordlessly moved aside so she could slip into his apartment. “You don’t have a car?” He winced as soon as the words fell from his lips. She also seemed to bring with her the ability to make him say the least tactful things imaginable. 

Éponine set her cup on the laminate countertop, drumming a nameless tune against the faux stone. She stuck her hands into the back pockets of her shorts and leaned against a barstool, making herself at home. 

“Unfortunately not, pretty boy,” the accompanying smile told him she hadn’t meant the term condescendingly; she seemed to be once more stating a fact he would be dumb not to realize. “It’s buses or walking for me, and I don’t wear sweat well this time of year.”

Enjolras nodded, for the first time realizing that perhaps Éponine hadn’t chosen this cheap apartment for its proximity to the university, but rather because it was all she could afford. In fact, he wasn’t sure if she attended the university at all, though that didn’t explain how she knew Marius, or why she’d come along to an ABC meeting. He wasn’t sure why this lack of detail perturbed him; he’d only met Éponine once before. Nothing about their interactions constituted them as friends, contrary to what Éponine’s rather familiar way of addressing him suggested.

“What do you study?” Enjolras asked, and it was perhaps the first polite, coherent sentence he’d uttered since they’d met. He felt strangely proud of that fact.

Éponine squealed and clapped her hands together. “I’m in Sigma Kappa! I’m majoring in petting puppies and pretending like I care about sad orphans!” 

It took Enjolras longer than he cared to admit to realize she was fucking with him. “Hilarious,” he said, because of course he couldn’t think of anything witty to say. “Absolutely hilarious.”

Éponine snorted and tossed back her mane of curly hair, clearly amused with herself. “I don’t go to school. I just got a job at that diner next door, actually. I’m assuming Mr. Golden Boy goes to the university? Majoring in saving the world?”

“It’s called political science,” Enjolras said stiffly, realizing they were once more toeing a dangerous line. He formed his next question carefully, leaving no room for Éponine’s witty remarks or snarky comments. “How do you know Marius, then? He’s never mentioned you before.”

And damn him, that was the wrong thing to say, because all of the bravado disappeared from Éponine’s face, and her eyes seemed to dim. She fiddled with her nails, and Enjolras didn’t have the heart to comment as flecks of black polish littered his carpet. When she looked at him, a new smile was on her face, conveying a bitterness that seemed to seep into his very bones.

“Of course he hasn’t,” Éponine said, the harsh tenor of her voice punctuated by a barking laugh. “Why would he? We met when he was in foster care after his parents died, before his grandfather decided he wanted him after all. I don’t think meeting me exactly makes the highlights reel.”

Enjolras turned over this piece of information in his head. He knew Marius had briefly been in foster care, but he had no idea he’d been there long enough to make friends. Enjolras looked at Éponine again, noting the slightness of her frame and the hollowness beneath her eyes. “But that was, what, ten years ago? You haven’t stayed in touch?”

Éponine sighed dramatically, all traces of sadness gone from her face. She spun around in the barstool she’d settled into, crossing her legs at the ankle. “You’re awfully chatty today, Blondie,” her eyes drifted to his unruly blond curls. Enjolras resisted the urge to run his hand through his hair. “We didn’t. I ran into him a few months ago, and Marius, bless him, decided to make it his personal mission to attach himself at the hip to me.” 

Éponine rolled her eyes, but there was something almost… Tender, in the way that she said Marius’ name, like it was a precious thing she cradled to her chest like a child. Enjolras could understand it, to a degree; Marius was pure light and joy, though a terrible secret-keeper and sometimes with a flair for the dramatics, but he was good. Solid. The kind of person you could depend on for almost anything. He wondered if perhaps Éponine’s own restlessness, her constant, ever-changing moods and rearranging of her emotions drew her to the pillar of stability that was Marius Pontmercy. 

Without realizing it, Enjolras had drifted to the kitchen himself as if Éponine were a magnet. He stumbled, catching himself smoothly against the countertop, and shuffled around in a cabinet before coming up with a half-empty package of sugar.  “Here’s that sugar,” he paused, the silence almost deafening, and the rambling that almost always stayed contained to his brain spilled out from between his lips. “I mean, is that enough? Because if you need more, I have some, only half a bag, though. We can go to the store if you need more--”

Éponine took the cup wordlessly, eyes now roaming over Enjolras’ living room and kitchen, examining. There wasn’t much to see; if hers had been packed to the brim with personality and objects the first day they’d met, then his was sterile and boring in comparison. Even though he’d lived there for four years, very few personal artifacts claimed the space. There was one photo of the Amis on the coffee table, and a quilt from his late grandmother draped across the sofa, but other than that, it could have been a showroom. Of course, there were the dishes in the sink and the madness that was his desk, but he didn’t think that quite counted as an interior design choice.

“I see you’ve picked a rather daring color palette,” and Enjolras bristled before realizing Éponine was kidding, in that particularly biting way she seemed to favor.  “It takes a true man to own beige like you have.”

Then Éponine was at the door, and Enjolras’ head was spinning with remarks that would never be clever and witty enough to match her. So, he settled on a different tactic, hoping to make up for his endless round of questions earlier. “The next time you need to go to the store, just… Let me know, alright? I could drive you.”

Éponine smiled, the second not quite happy, not quite sad one she’d graced him with that day, and that look told him she wouldn’t be taking him up on his offer anytime soon, if ever at all. Éponine seemed like someone who preferred to do everything herself, who saw kind acts as masked ulterior motives and accepting help as a weakness.

And so, he didn’t press her. Instead, he waited until a record began playing across the hall--this time a collection of Disney ballads, and he was impressed by her range in genre--before letting the door swing shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! i appreciate all of your feedback and will update asap!


	3. movin' up

Éponine hummed a tuneless pitch as she barged up the stairs to her floor. Her mind was on her younger brother, who was still trapped in that hellish house they called a home, and how he’d seemed too excited when she’d snuck by to bring him some leftover pie she’d snagged from the diner. Had he seemed too skinny? When was the last time she’d hugged him to feel his ribcage and spine? She was exhausted, and it wasn’t just from the twelve hour shift she’d pulled that day. She made a mental note to check Gavroche’s weight the next time she was able to check on him; hopefully, she was overreacting, and he was just being a normal, excitable twelve year old boy.

Éponine paused when she reached the end of the hall, head cocked as she listened for Enjolras, not that he made much noise anyway. The loudest sound she’d heard from that apartment was when a few of his friends had come over a few weeks before--during which she’d made sure to stay well inside the confines of her apartment--when one of them had accidentally launched what sounded like a crockpot at their shared wall. Predictably, she heard nothing, and so she pried open her never-locked front door. 

It creaked louder than she thought was humanly possible. Of course, the door had been like that since she moved in, but perhaps it was her exhaustion, or the fact that the day before, she had to get her A/C fixed, and why was everything in her damn life so broken--

Enjolras’ silent door opened--because of course Mr. Golden Boy wouldn’t have squeaky hinges--and he peered into the hall. Why he only stuck his head out, and slowly at that, as if he were in a James Bond film, confounded her, but she was in no mood to comment on it. 

Enjolras finally stepped out into the hall. If Éponine were a hurricane, she realized, all shrieking winds and devastating damage, then Enjolras was a quiet snowfall. She never heard his footsteps thudding up the staircase when he returned home after class or meetings, or caught even a trace of music playing within his apartment. Everything about him was quiet and precise, and it was absolutely maddening to her, the walking storm.  

“At least you don’t have to invest in an alarm system,” and he smiled at her in a way that suggested he’d been working on that one for a while. She hated how that remark immediately tugged a smile from somewhere deep inside her.

“But how will I be able to hide my secret romantic trysts from you when I send them on their merry way the morning after?” Éponine quipped, because she was unable to help herself when it came to annoying her strange neighbor. She missed the small grin that alighted Enjolras’ face as she tossed her keys inside. 

“Maybe the window, then?” And perhaps he was finally warming up to her, or maybe he was just high, because his face was bright and open, and she could have sworn that those blue eyes were fucking twinkling, for God’s sake. No one human should be allowed to be as lovely as he was and have sparkly eyes. It simply wasn’t fair. Even Marius didn’t have glittery eyes. 

“What about you, Marble Man?” she pushed her luck, fiddling with that damn door so that it emitted a loud squeak that had both of them wincing. “Do you find much time for women? Or do those pretty speeches you write take up all your waking hours?”

He must be high, because surely she couldn’t have cracked through his hard, awkward exterior so easily. Either that, or he was so sleep deprived that he thought he was dreaming. Her bets were on the latter. “I’m glad you think my speeches are pretty, if nothing else.”

She cocked her head, studying his face. She couldn’t tell what exactly his expression meant. “Don’t get me wrong, I think you speak brilliantly, but you lack… Conviction.” 

And she hadn’t meant to say it, but those thoughts had been lingering in her mind since the most recent ABC meeting, where she’d sat at the fringes of the crowd and slipped out of the crowded basement once Enjolras finished speaking. They had put a temporary hold on the bathroom issue while they awaited a response from the state board of education, moving on to organizing a warming center for the city’s homeless population in the upcoming winter months. It was a lovely idea,  but about it felt disingenuine. He fought for equality, yes, they all did, but when Éponine looked around the room that night, all she’d seen were rich, private university students who had never gone to bed knowing what it was like to be hungry, or had to stretch a few dollars across weeks.

“Conviction?” Enjolras repeated doubtfully, and she must have been imagining the twinkling in his eyes earlier, because now they were sapphire ice. It would have been impressive, really, had those icy daggers not been directed at her. “What lacks passion, pray tell? I fight for the people who can’t fight for themselves.”

Éponine half-smiled, shaking her head at this millennial revolutionary, slipping into her apartment as Enjolras continued to stare daggers through her. “That’s great and all, Enjolras, but you don’t truly know who you’re fighting for. Have you ever spoken to Molly, who stands on the corner two blocks over in order to feed her toddler? Do you know Old Bjorn, the man that collects tin cans along the hallway, because a few coins are better than nothing? You don’t know our names, where we come from, or how we live. That’s why you lack… Fire.”

The last words just slipped out, and Éponine wished she could take them back. Making that admission, talking of his passion, it was too personal, too close. She’d just been trying to go inside her apartment, for God’s sake. She hadn’t signed up to conduct a social justice reform session. 

Éponine turned away, and then another thought struck her. His hard gaze seemed to have melted just slightly, enough that Éponine felt her own insides soften a little, too. “It’s not your fault, you know,” he lifted a brow at her, clearly not understanding what she was attempting to nonverbally convey. God, this was awkward. “You were born to yours, and I was born to mine. We know nothing different than the bullshit we were raised with. I do believe you’re doing what you believe is right, and I can admire that.”

And the door creaked shut, and Éponine missed the way a true grin shaped on Enjolras’ lips the second he was alone. He would be the only man in the world to smile after a girl berated him, but something about that wild dark hair, those sparkling brown eyes, told him maybe, just maybe, he’d found his fire. Enjolras could see his next idea forming in his mind already, and so he hurried inside his own apartment, Combeferre’s number already dialed on his phone and halfway to his ear. 

When Éponine returned home the next evening after yet another twelve hour shift, she had made it inside her apartment before realizing something was amiss. The door was unlocked, per usual, but there was something different… Retracing her steps, Éponine swung the door experimentally, and there it was. No more squeaking. Perhaps Ms. Mendoza had come by, or maybe Enjolras had complained to maintenance. Her stomach twisted into knots as she wondered how much that was going to cost her. Just as she was figuring how to make her paycheck stretch even more for this unexpected expense, she spotted a post-it note nestled in the leaves of the fern she’d stuck in a pot outside her door. Éponine plucked it out of the plant, eyes skimming over the unfamiliar handwriting. 

_ Éponine- Just a little oil on the hinges.  _

_ Also… Perhaps consider locking your door every once in a while? Those spurned lovers may come back for another word. -E _

She was smiling, and she told herself it was just because that obnoxious door would no longer wake half the street every time the four walls felt like they were closing in on her and she needed an escape. But a smaller, quieter part of her felt a thrill at seeing her name written in his elegant scrawl.


End file.
